Mysuru engg students build cooking device that churns out dishes like Kesari Bath at the touch of a button

A team of innovators from NIE Mysuru has come up with the patent-pending invention that works much like a coffee machine but churns out dishes like bisibele bath and puliyogare at the touch of a buttonBharath Joshi | ET Bureau | November 04, 2016, 08:24 IST

One often hears about cloud-computing deployed by municipalities for better planning of public parking or by the police to analyse crime data. Now, a team of innovators has invented a cloud computing-based cooking device that dishes out ready-to-eat food.

A team of innovators from the National Institute of Engineering (NIE) in Mysuru has come up with the patent-pending invention that works much like a coffee machine but churns out dishes like bisibele bath and puliyogare at the touch of a button. The innovation is partly funded by the state's New Age Incubation Network (NAIN) project.

Inventors Madan G and Keshav Prakash, both M Tech students specialising in industrial automation and robotics, worked on the automatic cooking device over a year, along with faculty members of the mechanical engineering department. While the hardware prototype, including electronic circuits, is ready, they hope to develop a market-ready version within the next one year. They plan to price it around Rs 15,000.

“People want everything fast, like a vending machine that prepares tea or coffee. We asked ourselves why can't we use cloud computing to prepare dishes and delicacies,“ Madan said. While the inventors have currently programmed the prototype to prepare 14 south Indian dishes, it can be used to cook various kinds of foods.

All aspects of cooking a dish are programmed on this microcontroller-based device, right from displaying the menu and controlling temperature of the induction stove.The only human intervention required is to store ingredients in the containers. The user can work the device either manually or remotely.“There are buttons for dishes such as pongal, puliyogare and kesaribath. The system takes ingredients one by one to cook the dish within minutes,“ said MV Achutha, head of the NIE mechanical engineering department.

The inventors declined to share further details about the device's fupnctionality due to restrictions imposed by their patent lawyers.This is one of the only two projects funded under NAIN to have reached a patent stage. The other one is an Rsautomatic wireless auto mobile ignition ceasing system' developed by KLS Gogte Institute of Technology in Belagavi.

NAIN was born out of recommendations made by the Karnataka ICT Group 2020, headed by Manipal Global Education Services chairman TV Mohandas Pai and former bureaucrat BV Naidu. Each college stands to get a funding of up to Rs 40 lakh, which includes Rs 3 lakh each for ten projects and Rs 10 lakh to set up an incubation centre. Nine colleges across Karnataka have set up incubation centres so far.

“Since its inception in 2014, NAIN has funded 90 projects out of which 74 have resulting in working prototypes. We are now rolling out phase two of NAIN to cover more colleges,“ said A Maulishree, CEO of the ICT Skills Development Society which runs NAIN.